Jain Thought and Culture

Author(s): G C Pandey
Publisher: University of Rajasthan

Page 76

GC. PANDE
A NOTE ON UDDYOTANASURI'S KUVALAYAMALA
The Kuvalayamala is a Prakrla tale composed by the Jaina monk Uddyotana, styled Daksinyacılına in the year 779 at Jabalıpura, modern Jalore, when the king Valsaraja Ranahastın was ruling? The rich cultural material in the story becomes especially significant on account of the firm date of the work 3 We find here interesting glimpses of different aspects of social life We meet, tribal settlements (palli) which not unoften depended on robbing caravans, villages with prosperous farmers, retired soldiers and, noblemen, and wandering troupes of actors and ascetics, towns with milling crowds and glittering bazaars and many-storeyed white-washed mansions with flags waving in the breeze and latticed windows overlooking the streets We watch royal processions, battle-scenes and wedding festivities As the stories are generally concerned with princes and merchants, there are many picturesque descriptions of the palace and the court and especially of caravans and of merchant-ships ploughing the sea with their futtering white sails. The author takes special pains to let us occasionally hear the babel of spoken dialects and languages of his time
There are, however, two obvious limitations on the historicity of such descriptions in the first place, Kuvalayamala relies on earlier works to a considerable extent Its author mentions inter
+Tagore Professor now Vice-Chancellor, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur 1 It has been called a Campu, since it uses prose as well as verse Here at least the story, despite its complexity, runs continuously without any formal divisions The Prakrta is distinguished from Sanskrit, Apabhrams and Paisaci-Kuvalayamala (ed AN Upadhye), I, p 71 2 Ibid , Pt II, Introduction 3 y s Agrawal, A Cultural Note on the Kuvalayamala of Uddyotanasun' (Printed in Upadhye, op cit, II, pp 116-29)